


The Au in My Cu

by loustrous



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bad Puns, Chemicals, Chemistry, Chemistry puns, Flirting, Fluff, Happy Ending, I regret everything, I'm Sorry, Ice-Skating, M/M, burn - Freeform, harium chlouride, harium/louthium, harry is louis's chemistry partner, harry the nerdy worm morphs into aa hot butterfly, harry's puns, larry au, larry stylinson - Freeform, no Breaking Bad references though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 00:58:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loustrous/pseuds/loustrous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Louis sucks when it comes to elements and chemicals and Harry is his nerdy laboratory partner who knows everything Louis doesn’t. Louis might or might not be harbouring a crush. He blames those lethal curls.</p><p>(Written for H/L Holidays)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Au in My Cu

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Temporaryism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Temporaryism/gifts).



> so this is written in a hurry and I’m pretty sure it sucks. i'm so sorry. :( why is this the first thing i'm posting here.
> 
> (ty to hank green for 31 jokes for nerds. i stole two of those. ii regret nothing.)
> 
> and a big thanks to [veronika](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiglouis) bc she is the best and listens to me and she also beta'd!!
> 
> Behold, a chemistry partner AU. (which has no mention of any safety-gear whatsoever. oops.)
> 
> i blame [this ](http://i1.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article1816100.ece/ALTERNATES/s2197/Harry-Styles-before-he-was-famous-1816100.jpg) picture.
> 
> and finally,  
> 'tis the season to be jolly/ fa la la la la la la la larry!

The school bell rings, its shrill screech echoing through the hallways and classrooms with the might of a pterodactyl flying around and awakening fright as it goes.

Or rather, it is time for the Chemistry class and Louis is not freaking out.

Absolutely not. No sir. Nay way. Non. Nein. _¡Nunca!_

(But also, he is. Just a little. Or slightly more?)

Okay, so it has been established that he is freaking out.

The thing is, Louis doesn’t usually freak out when it’s time to go to the lab and play with chemicals and waste litmus paper, but today, Harry is back from his three-month holiday and that is an imperative issue.

And why is the return of his laboratory partner wreaking such distress?

It’s because after three months of not seeing Harry Styles in school, maybe Louis degraded Harry’s visage in his head, since the boy who breezed into the school today on the very day Harry was supposed to return is not the Harry Louis remembers.

Like honestly, the freshly-returned-from-Cheshire Harry (he had gone back there to his hometown since his grandmother was sick or something) is only a gazillion times hotter.

And that shouldn’t be possible, _couldn’t_ be possible.

When Louis thinks back to the previous periods spent in the lab with the younger boy (there is a _fourteen-_ month age difference between them that Louis is very proud of—except for the fact that Harry is smarter and that shouldn’t be so because Harry's brain ought to be smaller and puerile by the rules of nature), all he recalls is the clumsy, lumbering boy who mumbles too low, ducks his head a lot, fumbles with his jumpers when he makes pun (the you-make-me-want-to-cry type of puns) and knows the homologous series of all functional groups backwards in 17 languages. (Okay that’s a hyperbole, but Louis is making a point.)

And the point, _the bloody point_ , is that the scrawny-Harry has profusely morphed into beautiful-Harry. Louis spent a quarter of his first and the whole of his second period wondering if there was some local gym in Cheshire that put its customers under some extensive training, if it was run by a fairy godmother, if Harry came across a magic potion.

(Growth spurt was an option Louis refused to believe in since he could never associate such mundaneness to anything— _really_ , he even used to say his homework was eaten by his ten-year-old sister rather than his dog.)

Because all he remembers is _cute_ Harry, the one who was endearing and nervous (especially around Louis) and thus had a flush painted across his cheeks most of time in class, the older boy spitting out explicit comments and obnoxious retorts next to him. And now this Adonis-like Harry, well, let’s just say he’s been turning heads today in school after years of virtually being invisible.

Louis hates this extensive-role-change, role-reversal, _whatever_. He hasn’t even been able to point out the difference in the boy till now, for Christ’s sake. (But at least he’s sure the baby fat is gone. Definitely gone.)

So as he makes his way towards the lab, Room 214, he tries to figure out ways to appear _casual_ and _cool_ and still be the _crush_ and not the _crushee_.

When he enters the room, he greets peers in his wake, complimenting Calum’s hair, asking Miranda to help him with his English assignment and whatnot.

And then he reaches the third table on the left side of the lab - the very station he had been lousing around on for three months and had been sharing with Harry before that - spots the younger boy (who is also taller now— _taller than Louis, what the fuck?!)_ and gives him a vague smile as he settles his mint-condition Chemistry book on the table. (The state is that way only because Louis never opens the book rather than giving it extra care.)

Harry pulls his earplugs out with a grin.

“Louthium!”

_Oh, so they still are on nickname basis then, huh?_

“Harium,” Louis returns, his lips canting upwards too, and it’s strange how he’s feeling giddy and noticing that Harry’s eyes are greener (lighter than liquid in the beaker labeled ' _manganate_ ') and cheekbones are sharper (they look harder than those soft metals Louis can’t remember the names of right now) and skin is cleaner (it is _glowing,_ for fuck’s sake) and curls are springier (how the fuck?) and voice is deeper (whoa now) and _Louis needs to sit down and breathe._

A moment later, he does, with Harry still beaming at him, and then clears his throat, “So you are finally back then?” And what kind of a question was that? _Pull yourself together, Tomlinson._

“Here I am,” Harry gestures to his torso with both hands, his voice amused yet slow, and there isn’t even a single stutter or blink or breakage of eye contact. Louis is impressed. It takes the edge of a tad bit, only if because Louis knows he's supposed be better than Harry at being social. Socially capable.

“Here you are,” Louis agrees after a short pause. “And I know you missed me dearly these ninety days.”

“Ninety-two, yes.”

And that is such a Harry thing to do; correcting others. _The nerd is back everyone!_

Louis almost says that out loud too, but he remembers the time he had once offered Harry _Wonka Nerds_ in class, remembers the hurt look clouding over the baby-face before his green eyes noticed the small box thrust towards him, remembers Harry blushing at realization.

“And I bet you were just crossing out dates on your calendar every day,” he says instead.

“Undoubtedly. My sister was devastated because of all the x’s all over her Sexiest Men calendar that I borrowed.”

Louis blinks. Wait. Did Harry actually _retort back_ instead of sputtering out a “no”?! And made a non-heteronormative insinuation?

Louis is _so_ impressed. And so intrigued.

“Well, poor her. I never let my siblings _touch_ my Sexiest Men calendar.”

“She’s yet to learn from the best,” Harry shrugs, wrapping his earphones around his hand before thrusting them in his pocket as their teacher enters the class, and.

And Louis stares ahead stoically because Harry just _maybe_ called him the best. That was flirting. Louis is like 95% sure. There might be another meaning to his words, but. Louis can’t figure it out for the life of him.

**

 

They still bugger around in class as usual, Louis being a shit and Harry trying to guide him the right way.

The only difference is that the bow of Harry’s lips seems distracting this time, and Harry has witty comebacks on the tip of his tongue all along.

“Harry,” Louis turns to the boy with a smirk tugging at his lips. He holds up the familiar glass plug with four tubes connected to it (it’s his favourite thing in the lab) and gives Harry an innocent and bemused smile, “What is this called?”

Harry rolls his eyes with a snort, but as tradition (Louis has only posed this question two times a week for months before this), he answers, “Stopcock.”

Louis laughs just as loudly as every other instance, even though Harry’s burning blush is not accompanying him like previous times, but a mutter of “nutter” instead. Louis wants to smack his curly head with his hand. And smack his lips with his own.

He only does the former though, which earns him a sharp strike on his bum when he least expects it as he’s shaping a pentagon with test tubes. Louis sputters, with unnecessary blood rushing to his cheeks.

And hell no, he really doesn’t like this role-reversal.

(Only, _he does_. Fuck. A certain part of his anatomy _most certainly_ does.) (He kind of has to remind his dick that they are public and _toughening_ _up_ is not a favourable action.)

**

 

By the next class, they fall into routine easily, and Louis is whining about the most intelligent girl in his maths class who won’t tell him the answers to a test while Harry and him are supposed to identify the salts given to them with the help of chemicals (obviously Harry is doing that and dictating the answers to Louis as he jots them down in their observations' record).

“And Esther flips me off like I don’t matter! _Me._ How can I not matter, Harold?”

Harry giggles (he actually _giggles_ like the ‘old Harry’), pushing away from the burner he’s heating _something_ on and then stares at Louis with those amused eyes that give Louis slight heart palpitations.

“Maybe you give her the wrong vibe. I mean, you’re not the politest crayon in the box—”

“Hey!”

“—so maybe she just assumed you’re a rude twat. I mean, before talking to you, I could never have known that you’re parasitic and funny but kinda nice too, instead of just an overdramatic and obnoxious pretty face. You should try getting on her good side.”

Louis pretty much has no time to assess the few select compliments in his head before Harry is giving him a lazy smirk with a diabolic glint in his eyes, and he opens his pink mouth to say, “I know; you should tell her she smells amazing.”

“Harold, why the fuck would I do that? I don’t want to come off as a psychotic cannibal or something.”

“But Louthium, her name is Esther! _Ester._ Don't you get it?”

“What.”

“ _Ester_ ,” Harry is almost cackling now, and Louis doesn’t have a bloody idea what he’s on about. “Oh. God. Never mind.”

When Louis has a free block two hours later, he goes to the library - to the surprise of his friends and the librarian - and googles ‘ester.’ Wikipedia promptly tells him that _esters_ are functional group compounds that “often have a characteristic pleasant, fruity odour,” causing him to lose his shit, fall off the computer chair and moan into the floor because the Pun Master is degrading the meaning of his goddamn _life_.

A pair of girls of Year 7 look at him with wide-open mouths, but Louis chooses to stay down on the carpet until he hears the shutter of a phone's camera going off, and he flips off the culprit, a boy from his grade who took a picture of him in a moment of such emotional turmoil, before standing up and walking out into the corridor. Louis was not lying on the floor for the amusement of others; he can feel fondness for a certain  _ner_ _d_ expand in his chest, and oh-oh, that is never a good sign.

**

 

Two weeks later, Louis finds himself at Harry’s house to complete the project and presentation they need to submit the next day, and to say he is surprised is an understatement.

Harry’s _mansion_ has multiple gardens, redundantly high ceilings, crystal chandeliers, artsy butt-naked statues on the porch and a _pool_ with heaters. So naturally Louis pushes Harry into the water when he is in the midst of giving Louis a small tour at his _persistent_ insists.

Thirty minutes later, Louis finds himself sitting with his legs crossed underneath him on Harry’s bed and opposite to the boy himself whose hair has almost dried up.

Harry is busy stabbing the marshmallow in his hand with the spaghetti sticks in a packet in front of him as his tongue subconsciously pokes out from between his lips, and Louis admires him openly while chewing the dark chocolate pastry he was served by an honest-to-God butler. Harry has managed to be astonishingly down-to-earth despite being filthy rich, Louis will give him that.

Harry is supposedly making a model of 2,3 dimethyl butane with the uncooked pasta and marshmallows while referring to the structure formula he had drawn to explain Louis the saturated hydrocarbon earlier, and Louis almost would've almost missed Harry’s tiny smirk if he hadn't already been gawking at his mouth.

“What?” he asks exasperatedly, lips already tugging up in amusement. Fucking contagious smiles.

Harry clears his throat before looking at Louis through with his long lashes, and then holds the piece of marshmallow with four sticks of hard spaghetti (capped with another piece of marshmallow each) fanning out from it in all four directions in front of his own face.

“I’m Bond,” the curly-haired boy says in a raspy and serious voice. “Covalent Bond.”

Then he starts laughing as Louis stares at him in disbelief, and the older boy is barely able to conceal the chortles bubbling up to his lips as he makes a show of stabbing himself repeatedly in the neck with the help of the cake crumbs-covered fork in his hand, his tongue lolling out comically.

It only prompts Harry to laugh louder in a more ridiculous way, and Louis absolutely does not catch himself smiling from utter exasperation (that's all it is) before he joins Harry’s campaign to hurt himself seriously with laughter. 

Even though it couldn't possibly be, it somehow feels like the best time Louis has had in months.

(If Louis has a fleeting thought of Harry licking the crumbs off his jugular, then that's his own business. It has nothing to do with how he nips off to the loo the very next moment, either.)

**

 

They get an A+ for their presentation, and Louis can feel their teacher's, Mr. Blackburn’s, squinted eyes at the back of his spine as he trots back to his seat after showing their work to the class with Harry gleefully.

He gets the bad news after ten short minutes.

**

 

“How the fuck am I supposed to perform an experiment alone? _Harry_?!” Louis turns to the boy with wide eyes as their teacher walks away from their table with swagger, and Louis is _livid._

“Look, he told you he’ll give you the steps tomorrow. It’s a piece of cake if he’s giving you the steps.”

“It’s a cake of shit Harold, fuck off. I can’t even use the dropper properly. Why do I have to do this? I already did the presentation. _That_ is supposed to decide my grade for this term. Fucking Blackburn. I will castrate him to _death_.”

Harry blinks at him. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just talk about touching our teacher’s genitals. And he does make a point Louis; _I’m_ _the one who does all the work_.”

“Fuck off, Harry, _fuck off_.”

The boy scoffs in return, “I’m sure he’ll give you basic stuff, so stop freaking out. Just measure the chemicals correctly. And don’t heat ethanol directly.”

“I think I can do that,” Louis nods diplomatically, and frowns when his partner snickers.

“No you can’t, actually.”

“What the hell? Just two seconds ago you said I was capable.”

“I was just cheering you up. I could tell you jokes otherwise, see.

“So Argon walks into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender tells him that they don’t serve noble gases there… Argon doesn’t react.”

Louis scowls at the younger boy. (He hates the fact that Harry still looks so beautiful.)

"Please kill me right now."

Harry tries again. “Yo mama is so repulsive, even fluorine won’t bond with her.”

"Euthanasia is not a sin."

"What happens when oxygen and po--"

With the most blood-chilling expression he can conjure up, Louis cuts in with a: “Are you quite finished yet?”

“Yeah, okay, I am.”

“Then teach me how to dance, Harium!”

“You’re so weird,” Harry notes with an eye roll as he stands up and walks to the back of the lab, returning a minute later with a cylindrical measuring tube and a beaker of transparent liquid in his hands.

He places both of them on the tabletop and motions for Louis to get off the bench too.

“Measure fifty mils of that in the tube.”

Louis eyes the beaker wearily before taking it in his hand and standing in front of the tube, positioning the beaker over the mouth of the tube and tilting it sideways when—

“Get down to eye level, you arse.”

“Oh, I _bet_ you want me down on my knees.”

“Louis,” Harry chastises, looking fiercely at him through slitted eyes, and he just sembles a cat shaken from slumber, so Louis grins at him before bending his knees so his chin is almost brushing against the table.

When he gets no further instructions, he huffs out a, “Stop staring at my arse and do something productive.”

“Who says that isn’t productive,” Harry mumbles as he shuffles to half-crouch right next to Louis, and as their bare arms brush together, Louis realizes he still hasn’t gotten quite used to this sharp-mouthed and almost reckless version of Harry.

“Now pour the water in slowly, and watch the meniscus.”

“The meniscus being…” Louis prompts subtly. Or not so subtly.

“The upper curved line of the liquid. Jesus Louis, how did you survive the three months I was gone?”

“I resolved to masturbating to amateur gay porn and indie music.”

Louis once again tilts the beaker towards the circumference of the tube, but this is serious business with loads of pressure, has to be done with precision or the unborn baby will die, and Louis is too busy in sorting his thoughts (because _what the fuck? Unborn baby dies?_ ) that he doesn’t notice his shaking hand until Harry’s bigger one covers his and he tenderly starts pouring the water in the tube, his face next to Louis’s and breath lapping against Louis’s cheek.

So Louis stiffens, a gasp escaping his mouth.

And Harry hears the release of air, the trickling sound of water falling into the glassware dying down as Harry sets his gaze on the older boy who is already staring back with dilated pupils.

_Holy fucking shit._

Louis’s gaze drops down to Harry’s lips, parted and supple, and he would be lying if he said he hasn’t written a sonnet on them, comparing the fuchsia skin to red wine, and cotton candy, and blood (from the perspective of a BAMF-vampire, shut up).

Harry’s smell is intoxicating (with the hint some Versace body wash, Louis is sure), his eyes are hypnotizing and lips are magnetic.

Therefore, Louis feels himself leaning in instead of actually doing it consciously, Harry closing in half the distance, and then their lips are touching.

And then they are not.

Louis feels like his brain has melted down to slime, his knees shaky and hands sweaty as Harry clears his throat and turns back to face the tube, mumbling “just like that,” and _right, chemistry, experiment, life,_   _motherfucking meniscus._  Then Mr. Blackburn passes by them and Louis is positive he is half-dead.

They don’t mention the kiss for the rest of the class.

**

 

The next day when Louis shows up at the chemistry laboratory (with a chemistry book in his bag which has a crumpled page and a dried watery stain on it since Louis actually studied the previous day and then maybe fell asleep on the book and just _maybe_ drooled on it), five minutes earlier than the class is supposed to start, he doesn’t find Harry sitting at their table and listening to some unheard-of band like he always has had, and his face falls.

**

 

After fifteen minutes it is pretty obvious that Harry isn’t showing up, and when Louis performs the experiment to retain his grade, he somehow manages to complete it and write up a report too.

After the class, Louis calls Harry - after borrowing his number from the blonde Irish guy who knows everyone - to thank him (and also enquire about his absence), but there is no answer and he disconnects the call without leaving a voicemail.

**

 

The day after that, Harry again doesn’t show up and this time Louis is worried.

He is worried if he read the signs wrong and assumed banter to be blatant flirting and the kiss scared Harry off. He cannot even trust his own memory of the peck at this point. He takes psychology. He knows memory is just a biased version of true events recreated every fucking second. He is _worried_.

In fact, his anxiousness distracts him so much that he manages to spill concentrated HCl on his hand.

**

 

_Ring, ring. Ring, ring. Ring, ri—click._

“Hello?”

“Harry.”

“Who—Louis?”

“Yes. I’m at your pool so get the fuck here right now.”

“You’re _where_?” _Cough._ “I—I’ll be down there in a minute?”

“Bye.”

**

 

“What are you doing here?”

Louis turns around with the most lethal glare he can manage at Harry’s voice, but it dies down when he sees the state of Harry—his eyes and nose are red, hair in disarray and he’s wearing a pink fluffy robe over dark blue pajamas which has brown kittens printed on it.

Which, _okay,_ and _what_?

“What the hell happened to you?”

“Caught the flu,” Harry says, punctuated with cough akin to the one Louis heard on the call, and _oh._

“So that’s why you didn’t come to school?”

“Yeah, I’ve been either sleeping or staring at the ceiling, drugged.” _Oh_.

“Well that sucks. I was here to punch you,” Louis holds up his left hand as evidence, and Harry’s eyes widen at the heavily bandaged limb.

“What happened to your hand?!”

Louis sniffs. “Hydrochloric acid. And you.”

“ _Shit_. And wait, what did I do?”

“You made me think you’re a homophobic bastard, that’s what!”

Harry’s eyes bulge out further, if possible. “A homopho— _fuck_ no. No. _Shit_. Jesus, Lou, no. I _like_ you, I’m not homophobic.”

“Whatever. Everybody loves me. I’m like Raymond. And Ryan Tedder.”

Harry lets out a manic cackle before stalking over to Louis in long strides. “Fuck, I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you.”

Louis looks at Harry jadedly, “Your money can’t buy me happiness or compensation, Harold.”

Harry looks down at him with a pout. “Fine, I was thinking Paris for the first date, but we can go wherever you want.”

“First date, _what_?!” Louis doesn’t screech. No. He doesn’t.

And Harry gets down on one knee. “Louthium Tomlinson, will you go on a date with me?”

The blue-eyed boy almost cries with laughter because holy shit this is so clichéd and a _dream_ , but then Harry spurs into a coughing fit, and _no, this shit is real life,_ and.

“Okay. Okay, yes. Fuck, stand up.”

When Harry is looming over Louis again, despite the fact that he is hunched over (which is fucking hot, Jesus fucking Christ), the latter clears his throat, his eyes sparkling like an ocean under the sun’s muted glare.

“I would kiss you right now, but you’re sick and I don’t want to get infected too.”

“Okay.”

“But I will kiss you anyway.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

And Louis kisses Harry.

**

 

Their first date gets postponed because both of them are too sick to get out of bed, but five days later, a finally-healthy Louis takes a finally-healthy Harry to the ice rink he works at, and Harry never makes it to more than three glides before he almost slips into Louis’s grip, he falls over more than a fucking four-year-old toddler, and once he drags Louis down with him on the frozen “H2O;” but they kiss in the middle of the ice-skating rink and even though Louis later gets chided by his boss, in that moment, with Harry's solid weight on top of him, Louis feels like he’s in love and nothing could be more perfect and him and Harry are stronger than an ionic bond.

And hell, that boy has fucked with his head because all Louis can do now is _think in chemistry._ If that even makes any sense. Fucking _nerd_.

**

 

_the end basically._

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you don't hate this dear Temporaryism
> 
> the ship for this one-shot is harium chlouride.  
> ...shoot me now. i apologize for the weird, nonsensical things. all of it, pretty mmuch.
> 
> did anyone get the meaning of the title, though?


End file.
